


The Tudors, Season 4, Episode 5, The Bottom of the Pot

by TheSomewhatRamblingReviewer



Category: The Tudors (TV)
Genre: Analysis, Episode Review, Episode: s04e05 The Bottom of the Pot, Meta, Nonfiction, Season/Series 04, Spoilers
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-29
Updated: 2020-10-29
Packaged: 2021-03-09 02:00:32
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,766
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27266851
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TheSomewhatRamblingReviewer/pseuds/TheSomewhatRamblingReviewer
Summary: Warning: Contains spoilers for the episode and the rest of the series. Complete.
Kudos: 9





	The Tudors, Season 4, Episode 5, The Bottom of the Pot

Open to Henry demanding to know what the letter from last episode says. Edward reasonably points out Henry’s already read said letter, but Henry reiterates his demand for Edward to tell him.

The letter accuses Kitty-Kat of being a wild child before she married Henry. This includes having two previous boyfriends. The letter claims her way of life was no secret.

No duh. Everyone, including Henry, knows she wasn’t a virgin when she married him. Her being so sexually experienced was what made him like her so much. She herself told Edward, Francis, and Charles Brandon how permissive the dowager duchess’s household was. None of them told Henry, because, they thought they were just getting him a temporary bed partner instead of a wife.

Henry asks who wrote the letter. It’s unsigned, and the letter writer explains they only wrote, because, they didn’t have the heart to come to Henry directly.

This could be anyone, but my bet is still on it being either Cranmer or Charles Brandon.

Claiming the letter is a forgery, Henry demands Edward nevertheless investigate as well as keep Kitty-Kat confined to her apartments with only Lady R to wait on her until she’s cleared.

A forgery is an illegal copy of something. I know Henry’s meaning was that the writer was lying, but writing something untrue doesn’t automatically constitute forgery.

Meanwhile, Kitty-Kat and her ladies are practising dancing when guards burst in to explain things. Somehow, the musicians playing disappear as this is happening. Kitty-Kat clings to Joan’s hand for as long as she can. She tearfully begs the sergeant to tell her why she’s being imprisoned.

Next, Francis D is arrested, too.

Then, Rich comes in to talk to Joan. Joan confesses Kitty-Kat lost her virginity to a music teacher before she started dating Francis D.

Meanwhile, Edward talks to Francis D, and Francis D refuses to answer whether he and Kitty-Kat had sex. He’s taken to a torture chamber.

Elsewhere, Henry and Charles Brandon are playing cards, and bring Charles Brandon up to speed about the accusations, he tells him to be careful whom he speaks to about the investigation.

In Kitty-Kat’s chambers, she and Lady R are both crying. Wondering what was told to Henry, Kitty-Kat is unsympathetic to Lady R’s fear. Calming down, she says she has to speak to the king. Looking in a mirror, she insists he’ll understand.

During Francis D’s interrogation, he explains to Edward that he and Kitty-Kat were engaged. They had sex in the belief they’d get married soon. Francis D went to Ireland to get enough money, and when he got back, Kitty-Kat was already at court. Edward asks if they had sex after Kitty-Kat married Henry, and Francis D swears they haven’t.

Meanwhile, Eustace comes to visit Mary. After things are explained to her, declaring Kitty-Kat a bad Catholic, Mary has no sympathy for her.

In the Seymour apartments, Anne is visibly pregnant. She, Edward, and Tom talk about Kitty-Kat’s past, and Anne’s response is, “You surely knew that.”

Thank you.

Edward claims he didn’t know Kitty-Kat’s unconventional upbringing consisted of her sleeping with two older men when she was fourteen.

Maybe he didn’t know this specifically, but he’s not actually surprised.

Anne wins even more points outright saying this.

Already suspecting, if not outright knowing, the baby isn’t his, Edward responds, “And who is innocent, my sweetheart?”

Putting a foot on the table, Tom asks if Edward believes Francis D’s claim of not sleeping with Kitty-Kat after her marriage to Henry. Admitting he doesn’t know, Edward glares until Tom removes the foot. Heh.

Anne urges Edward to be careful since he was one of the people who brought Kitty-Kat to Henry, and Edward makes it clear he’s going to throw Kitty-Kat under a bus to try to save himself. He says he’s going to be bed, and briefly touching Tom’s shoulder, he places a hand on Anne’s stomach. “I bid thee all, three of thee, good night.” He kisses Anne.

“Goodnight, brother,” Tom says.

Once Edward is gone, Anne asks Tom what they should name his child.

I don’t know if Edward knows she slept with his brother specifically, but depending on when he got back from Scotland and when the last time he and Anne had sex before and after said trip, he’s already done some math. Either it’s possible the child’s his but Anne has said or done something to imply otherwise, or it’s not possible, and it’s just another one of those things they won’t ever openly discuss.

Meanwhile, Kitty-Kat convinces a servant to take pity on her. All he can tell her is: Francis D has been arrested, and people have been sent to the dowager duchess’s household.

Next, Henry comes to a council meeting, and Culpepper sets a tray on the table. There’s a cool moment where, looking at him, Charles Brandon almost glares before sitting down. The camera focuses on Charles Brandon, and his cheek is pulsing.

Well done, Henry Cavill.

Edward says that the music teacher denies taking Kitty-Kat’s virginity. Then, he explains about Francis D and Kitty-Kat’s engagement. Since Kitty-Kat hired Francis D, this is apparently proof she’s, at least, thought about cheating on Henry.

Putting aside the fact the audience knows she has, hiring an old boyfriend/girlfriend isn’t proof of anything. In real life, there are people who’ve had old loves at their weddings and made high school sweethearts the godparent of their kids.

Second, being tempted in and of itself isn’t a bad thing. Kids are tempted to cheat on a test, people sometimes find themselves wanting to sleep with someone besides their significant other, etc. This is human nature. What is important is whether they give into temptation.

In the next scene, Tom and some guards come to take Kitty-Kat’s jewellery. He reveals she’s been stripped of her title of Queen, and she insists all will be well if she can speak to Henry.

I think some part of Tom feels pity for her and/or hopes she’s right. After telling her Henry is in chapel, he leaves the door open as he goes to speak to some guards.

Taking her chance, she runs.

The guards grab hold of her when she gets a few feet in front of Henry, and she begs Henry to let her talk to him. “It’s me, Kathryn. It’s Kathryn.”

Henry walks away, and Kitty-Kat’s dragged off.

In another room, Henry sends for Gardiner.

Next, Francis D is tortured.

Later, Gardiner comes to see Kitty-Kat, and due to her franticness, her guard has removed all implements she might have used to harm herself with. Trying to calm her, Gardiner informs her Henry sent a letter offering mercy. She just needs to answer a few questions.

She has a panic attack, but eventually, she manages to calm enough to clearly express her guilt.

Meanwhile, a bleeding Francis D is thrown in a cell.

Back to Kitty-Kat, she gives her confession, and I feel sorry for both Gardiner and her. Gardiner tries every way he can to get her to say she believed she and Francis D were going to get married. He even explicitly tells her saying so will save her, but Kitty-Kat refuses to admit it. Finally, she accuses Francis D of rape.

I really hate when media presents a character lying about being raped.

In real life, there are people who maliciously lie about being raped, but these people make up a small percentage of all rape claims. Until rape victims are truly taken seriously and helped in the real world, fictional portrayals of characters falsely, whether maliciously or not, claiming rape only exacerbates a real world problem.

Next, Gardiner talks to Charles Brandon and Edward. He doesn’t buy Kitty-Kat’s claim of rape or some of the other things she’s said including a pre-contract not being involved. He continues Kitty-Kat is insistent she’s been faithful to Henry.

Edward asks if Gardiner believes this.

“You don’t believe it,” Charles Brandon inquires of Edward.

Edward answers he doesn’t believe anything Francis D says.

“It might not be Dereham,” Charles Brandon says, but Henry appears before he can answer Edward’s question of what makes him say this.

Gardiner says all the right things to get Henry agree an annulment is the best option.

Naturally, the next scene has Edward psychologically torturing Francis D with the threat of further physical torture, and Francis D tells him about Kitty-Kat and Culpepper.

Meanwhile, Rich interrogates Kitty-Kat. She claims to have flirted with Culpepper, met him in secret, and given him gifts. However, insisting she never had sex with him, she accuses Lady R of encouraging her.

Elsewhere, Edward interrogates Culpepper. He claims he wanted it but that it never went beyond words. Then, he blames Kitty-Kat and Lady R.

His death can’t come soon enough.

Finally, Lady R tearfully tells Tom that she was forced to stand guard when Kitty-Kat and Culpepper had sex. She asks if she’s to die, and Tom either can’t or won’t answer.

At a meeting, Henry’s told about Kitty-Kat and Culpepper, and he’s read the love letter Kitty-Kat sent. Instead of realising marrying a flighty, 17-year-old girl was a momentously stupid action on his part and that he needs to start finding age-appropriate women who he likes for more than sex, Henry blames the others for urging him to marry her.

Meanwhile, Anne has had a baby boy. “Well done, wife,” Edward says. He asks what they should name the baby.

Telling him exactly who she conceived the child with, she answers, “Thomas.”

Nodding, Edward agrees.

Max Brown does a good job with this scene. Edward doesn’t know what to say, and so, he keeps it safe. Some part of him hoped the baby would make things better. She’d agree to give him Edward’s name, or she’d want to name him a name she’d always liked or after someone in their family (other than the person she slept with, obviously). Maybe, then, he could bring up the elephant in the room. Instead, she makes it clear she doesn’t care about his pain, his humiliation, or any of his other feelings.

He’ll raise the baby, hopefully, love it, but probably not, and they’ll go on with their sham of a marriage.

Elsewhere, Tom comes to ask Lady R some questions, but the guard says there’s no point. Lady R is suffering a complete break from reality. Tom looks through the window, and giggling, Lady R is playing faeces.

In the next scene, Charles Brandon comes to see Henry, and Henry asks if Charles Brandon has ever read The Bible.

“No, your majesty. I’ve always allowed others, with more knowledge than I, to read it for me.”

I love this answer. It describes Charles Brandon concisely and accurately.

In response, Henry reads misogynistic, possibly out of context, passages. He asks why Charles Brandon has come.

The French king has sent a letter. It’s subtly mocking Henry under the guise of sympathetic support. Henry starts to order Charles Brandon to tell the French king to do something but changes his mind, and his revised response is suitably diplomatic.

Whatever his original response was, it started with “fu”.

He asks about Francis D and Culpepper. Culpepper pleaded guilty at the last moment, and Francis D was found guilty. They’re both to be drawn-and-quartered, but Henry commutes the sentence of the man who actually slept with his wife, never mind raped another woman, to beheading whilst keeping the drawing-and-quartering for the man who slept with the girlfriend he had every intention of marrying long before Henry ever even met her.

Much like when More was delivered to the block tied up, I have to protest this despite my dislike for Francis D.

Lady R has been found guilty, too, but since she’s insane, she can’t be executed.

Wrong. Henry orders a bill up making it legal to execute the insane.

Charles Brandon doesn’t like this, but he agrees to do so without argument. He starts to leave, but Henry stops him. He points out Charles Brandon was one of the ones who placed Kitty-Kat in front of him. “Any regrets?”

This is the equivalent of kicking a shaking, curled up dog.

I don’t know if Henry realises this or just decides he’ll let things lie for now, but when Charles Brandon mournfully looks at him, he waves his question away.

In the next scene, Kitty-Kat is dancing as her VO recites the love letter. This is intercut with Culpepper and Francis D being executed. Culpepper’s last words are a calm, “I beg you all to pray for me.”

I really like the way Torrance Coombs played the scene. Culpepper was disconnected, uncaring and unafraid, and said what he knew to be acceptable. He showed no love for Kitty-Kat, no devotion or respect to Henry, but he didn’t condemn them or Lady R, either. It was about him.

Francis D, who is a jerk but not a sociopath, reacts with the fear many people do in the face of death. He vomits. As his brutal execution is carried out, Kitty-Kat VOs about her past relationship with him.

After both are dead, her dance is finished, and she sinks to the floor.

Someone did an excellent job on the visuals of this episode. Kitty-Kat’s wild hair when she begged Henry to listen, and her graceful, fairy-like dance were marvellous. They both invoked a palatable sense of haunting.

Later, Charles Brandon reads out a list of charges to Kitty-Kat. It’s his duty to escort her to the tower. She starts to collapse, and her guard catches her. She begs him for help.

The guards take her. In the tower, Kitty-Kat sees Culpepper and Francis D’s heads, and she has a breakdown over Culpepper’s.

Next, Henry is told about their deaths as well as the passing of the bill to kill Lady R. Declaring he wants to have party, he gives the servant a list of guests.

In the tower, a man comes into Kitty-Kat’s cell to announce she’s going to die tomorrow. She gives no reaction, and he tries to leave quickly. She asks if he’ll bring the block to her cell so that she can practise. Agreeing, he asks if she’d like a confessor, too.

“No. I’ve spoken to God so rarely, I do not think he would know who I was,” she answers.

There’s an intercut scene of Henry presiding over a banquet of women as Kitty-Kat stares at the block before, nakedly, practising kneeling on it.

Personally, I don’t like this. It could’ve been poignant, and I don’t think this was done solely for fanservice. I definitely understand nudity, especially female nudity, isn’t always sexual. However, this scene had a weird, uncomfortable sexual undertone to it, and it destroyed any poignancy it might’ve had.

The next scene shows a little girl looking much like a younger Kitty-Kat with a doll looking out a window. There are peasants going to the execution, and the camera briefly focuses on a pregnant woman walking arm-in-arm with a man.

On the scaffold, N2 gives Kitty-Kat an unsympathetic look, and the executioner manhandles a confused, wandering Lady R. Showing gentleness, another man asks if she’d like to say a few words.

Tearfully, Lady R manages to get out a simple speech asking forgiveness from God, Henry, and the rest of the people. There are some ladies watching her tearfully. She asks the man if she should say more, and he kindly answers no.

Lady R is killed, and the ladies take her discarded head.

Joan and Kitty-Kat look at one another. Then, Kitty-Kat looks up, and there’s a beautiful shot of a crescent moon against the blue sky. The kind man tells her it’s time.

Walking over, Kitty-Kat gives the historically inaccurate line about dying a queen but wishing she could die Culpepper’s wife instead.

I hate this line.

First, she’s not dying a queen. It’s been established Henry stripped her of her queenship.

Second, I just utterly loathe this line. It does an injustice to both the character and the historical woman. Kathryn Howard was pale, terrified, and needed help climbing the scaffold. Despite this, however, the flighty girl who was used as nothing but a pawn and died due to a misogynistic tyrant’s hurt pride gave a composed speech acknowledging the rightness of her punishment, asked for mercy for her family, and for prayers for her soul.

Back to the review, Kitty-Kat kneels down. Declaring with a smile, “Life is very beautiful,” she places herself on the blood-covered block.

Fin.


End file.
